The large increase in amount of data generated by digital systems yearns for more sophisticated approaches to data storing, processing, and analyzing. In this context, scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) systems have proved popular as a technology for managing this “Big Data.” Conventional NAS systems utilize a network data management protocol (NDMP) to move data between a primary storage device and a secondary storage device, for example, during data backup and/or restore. Typically, the NAS systems run on a set of heterogeneous hardware node configurations, wherein not all nodes within a cluster have access to Fibre-channel hardware devices that are utilized to run NDMP sessions. As the volume of NDMP sessions running on nodes that can access to the Fibre-channel hardware devices increases, the nodes are over utilized, leading to hardware resource constraints. While the Fibre-channel nodes are over utilized, the other non Fibre-channel nodes are not equipped to handle NDMP sessions.
The above-described background relating to file systems is merely intended to provide a contextual overview of some current issues, and is not intended to be exhaustive. Other contextual information may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.